Keith Phipps

Though he never quite rescues the film, Bardem continually suggests the tensions bubbling under the surface that Dancer itself never penetrates.

Craven's name doesn't appear anywhere in the credits of the film otherwise known as They. That's fitting, too, since even the worst Craven-directed movies have a lot more going for them than this painfully familiar bit of oogum-boogum.

Playing in theaters when it belongs on television, where snacks and bathroom breaks can counteract its punishing dryness, and the option of watching something else doesn't involve driving home.

While Zeffirelli couldn't have assembled a more capable cast, none of them, except Cher, are given characters colorful enough to make the film worthwhile; almost everyone gets lost amidst the Tuscan scenery.

Fast-paced and ambitious, it never bores, and Soderbergh proves himself interesting to watch in addition to being gifted behind the camera.

Rourke's hammy, eyeliner-enhanced acting alone almost makes Alex Rider worth a look.

The Golden Compass does manage the job of bringing Pullman's world to the screen. With luck, any future entries will try harder to get the job done right.

Jordan invests attention in even the most throwaway moments and marginal characters, and his care makes the film a sustained, low-key pleasure.

Diesel clearly has fun playing a character so bullish that his skin seems to be made of leather, and he's self-conscious enough to pull it off even after the film surrenders to formula.

Evening proves that there are such things as mistakes, by featuring two hours of bad choices and half-executed ideas.

There aren't a lot of laughs in Happy Endings, and those that sneak in are pretty wry. There's no comedic snap either, and while that seems not to be the point, humor might have helped with the film's often-sluggish pacing.

Nobody handles unvarnished interactions quite the way Kiarostami does, and for much of Ten, it's a kind of austere thrill to watch him focus so intently on one aspect of his craft.

Lee at his best, a virtuoso piece of filmmaking that's stylish, substantial, and rich in detail.

What it became is essentially one long free-fall from destitution to despair.

While moments indicate that not everybody working on the project was asleep at the switch, Quest For Camelot is strictly for bored toddlers and those breathlessly anticipating the completion of the Ferngully trilogy.

A remarkable film that towers over the endless clones that followed.

It looks handsome but seems infected by the idea of playing different roles; a comedy in one scene, it adopts a mood of a high seriousness the next and clutters the stage with minor characters that contribute little. In the end, this inability to make up its mind does the film in.

It's the perfect end-of-summer film, and a sign that summer needs to end soon.

Despite years of imitators, sequels (some great, some not so), and edited-for-television broadcasts, Alien has lost none of its power, and the big screen only intensifies its impact.

In spite of the unavoidable disappointment that comes from raised expectations (and lowered elevations), it's clumsy storytelling that ultimately keeps Warriors grounded.

Ice Princess will probably connect most strongly with kids who have yet to develop an awareness of sports- and family-film clichés.

Danish director Carl Dreyer's 1928 film The Passion Of Joan Of Arc is one of the indisputable masterpieces of the silent era.

Heavy is the kind of deliberately slow-paced character study that allows carefully realized performances to shine.

It is, in short, sub-par as demon-possessed-car movies go, even if watching Brolin attempt to act horrified at the sight of a classic automobile makes it almost worthwhile.

Deschanel and Schneider--who both give rich, funny performances--and everyone around them have inner lives that don't always translate into words. When they speak, it's usually in dialogue halfway between poetry and inarticulate fumbling.

Shot like a horror film and featuring Olivier as one of the least sympathetic heroes in the Hitchcock canon, Rebecca's smart extrapolation on themes inherited from gothic thrillers and Brontë novels allows the director to begin with a suspenseful romance that barely keeps its subtext under the surface, and smuggle in a story of one woman's immersion into the sexual expectations of her era.

A sweet, unabashedly corny, matinee-friendly science-fiction adventure starring Lance Guest as a trailer-park videogame prodigy, and Robert Preston as the alien who recruits him to save the day from some space-baddies.